Here in New York City, spring has arrived in full force; the leaves have returned, the cherry trees have blossomed, the parks are bustling, and legions of pallid hipsters have cautiously reemerged into the sun.  Life is good – and so are conditions for the urban cyclist.  It’s fitting therefore, that May is Bike Month in New York City!

Organized by the NYC Department of Transportation and cyclist/pedestrian advocacy group, Transportation Alternatives, Bike Month NYC is an extended celebration of – wait for it – bicycling in the city.  The goal is to encourage more New Yorkers to ride bicycles since doing so is good for the environment, good for human health and good for fostering development of the sort of livable communities that make cities great.  I’d add from personal experience that urban cycling is also tremendously fun – though to quote the inestimable LeVar Burton, “you don’t have to take my word for it.”

Anyway, as if bike month wasn’t already mind-blowingly awesome enough, Eat Well Guide is hosting the Tour de Farmers’ Markets on May 15!  It’ll be kind of like the Tour de France except without the 2,200 grueling miles of high-speed cycling.

As the cheesy title suggests, our event will involve exploration of several NYC farmers’ markets (Union Square, Fort Greene and Grand Army Plaza) via bicycle.  The goal is to demonstrate the ease with which these hotbeds of sustainable food can be accessed on two wheels.

The event is free, open to anyone comfortable riding a bicycle in the city, and will cover a very modest 6 miles (9.66 km) at a pace best described as extremely leisurely.  I’ll be the guide for the adventure, leading the group from market to market while providing riveting commentary about such topics as heirloom tomatoes, bicycle lanes, and the manure lagoons used by industrial livestock operations.

And if that’s not sufficiently enticing, we’ll also be giving away fancy tote bags, tasty snacks and some exceptionally fashionable Eat Well Guide buttons.  If you’re in/near New York City on the 15^th, join us!

Event Details:

Tour de Farmers’ Markets – Saturday, May 15, 9:00 am

Meet at the northwest corner of the Union Square Greenmarket at 9:00 am (or you can join the ride at either of the Brooklyn markets afterward – see schedule below).  Ride your favorite bicycle, wear your favorite helmet, and bring money to buy fresh food from local farmers.

Itinerary:

9:00 am – Union Square Greenmarket (meet at the northwest corner)

10:40 am – Fort Greene Greenmarket

11:30 am – Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket

Cycling Route:

See our map

Have you ever thought about how things you use in your everyday life could affect weather patterns?  Reading Anna Lappé’s book Diet for a Hot Planet, I had to ask myself questions like “Why would big companies that fill their food with high fructose corn syrup and other junk ignore the fact that they are a main reason why we are experiencing global warming?”  I could only come up with two possibilities: Either all they care about is making money or they are ignorant beyond belief.

An example of the relationship between our food and our climate occurs in factory farms, where cows are crammed together and given hormones to make them grow faster and produce more milk, along with food (mainly corn) that upsets their stomachs and can cause E. coli. But they aren’t only producing milk; they are producing gas and poop that contains methane, an odorless gas that increases the greenhouse effect and traps heat twice as effectively as carbon dioxide – commonly referred to as CO2.

Despite the fact that we might not realize it, all the food that we eat causes some small part of global warming.  Think of . . . pasta with vodka sauce, my favorite Italian dish.  Would you think that global warming can be served in that small of a dish?  The answer is, no, you wouldn’t think that possible, but it is.  The wheat from the pasta is most likely fertilized with fossil fuel-based chemicals. The milk or cream in the vodka sauce is probably from a factory farmed cow (unless my mom made it, in which case it was probably organic).  Even without chemical fertilizers or factory farms, if your food rides in a truck before it gets to you, it carries some sort of “carbon foodprint.”

Now, in my opinion, this book is an important piece of work that everyone should read.  It offers a large amount of information that is enough to explain what I need to know about food and global warming, but not so much as to put me to sleep.  Anna Lappé’s Diet for a Hot Planet does not seem like it is meant to make you feel guilty about the things you’ve done and eaten, but to make you realize what your actions are doing to the earth, and to help you correct them.

The Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) act is going to be re-signed in Congress very soon which is why I was lobbying in Washington DC last week. CNR is a huge piece of legislation that covers several extremely important programs including school lunches, after-school and summer feeding programs, and Women Infants, and Children (WIC). It’s only signed every 4 or 5 years so what Congress decides NOW will affect these programs for half a decade.

It’s bewildering to me why the government is hemming and hawing over how much money they should invest in CNR. It could be as low as a half a billion (which sounds like a lot but divide that by five years and millions of schools) and as much as $4 billion (which would be a miracle).  When they give so little for each child’s school lunch, how can the school staff be expected to produce healthy, balanced meals for growing children? Even the most talented chefs I know would have a hard time coming up with a well-rounded meal appropriate for children if they only had a couple of bucks to spend per person. And had little to no kitchen equipment. And were given low-quality ingredients.

Why does this matter to you? Well, for one, every time you get taxes taken out of your hard-earned paycheck, it’s funding programs like school lunches. And even if you don’t have kids, this legislation affects our economy – sick kids grow up to be sick adults. Last year obesity related health problems cost this country $147 billion. That $4 billion doesn’t sound like so much anymore, huh?

It even affects national security! Currently, 70% of military age kids are UNFIT to serve. Even retired generals know we need to improve school lunches and nutrition education for kids. People are worried about higher taxes if we support these kinds of programs but the truth is, this is a drop in the bucket for our nation’s spending and we will be saving ourselves a lot of money in the long run. Consider this: we spend roughly $7 billion PER MONTH in Iraq!

We need to start investing in prevention and turning our health around in the kitchen – starting with school lunches. Invest now, save later. A fundamental of finance theory that applies to our health.

So, what can you do? While you sit on your computer or doing the laundry? Quite a bit, actually.

To learn more, visit the Health Schools Campaign website and Julie’s full post at My Kitchen Nutrition.

Can you believe everything you read on food products? Unfortunately, the answer is: no, not really. I keep seeing commercials claiming that their “whole grain product” will prevent heart disease. HEART DISEASE. If that were true, then, technically Americans shouldn’t have much heart disease, right? We do love our cereal….

In fact, it’s gotten so bad that the FDA recently posted a list of companies who are making false front-of-the-package claims.

We should be suspicious of any company that spends millions on a marketing budget in order to sell their “healthy” products to us. The foods that are healthiest for us usually don’t have a marketing budget at all!  Many companies are jumping on the “health halo” bandwagon right now. Buyer beware.

The truth is that it’s actually soluble fiber in the whole grain that lowers cholesterol, thereby reducing heart disease risk. Most whole grains, or vegetable, bean or fruit, contain soluble fiber which can reduce heart disease. (Foods that are high in soluble fiber include oats, barley, beans, flax seed, and some fruits and vegetables.)

So, what is a whole grain exactly?

A whole grain has three parts: the outer, fibrous hull/bran (which is what makes brown rice chewy), the germ (which contains vitamins, minerals, and even some protein), and the endosperm (pretty much just starch). To make a long story short, some time after World War II, when manufacturers were able to use trucks and airplanes to ship products far away, they discovered that whole grain products didn’t last as long on the shelf due to the oils in the germ that would go rancid.

So, food manufacturers started yanking off the fibrous hull, and removing the nutrient-packed germ leaving only the starchy endosperm behind. This method continues today. The endosperm is then combined with refined sweeteners, additives, and preservatives. The result is “refined carbs” which is what we’ve been eating for years.

This is NOT a whole grain.

Cereal products made from whole grains do contain a few more nutrients and fiber than their all-white counterparts but they are still ground down and processed. If a product does not resemble brown rice, quinoa, millet, barley, oats or anything else that looks like it came directly from the ground, then it is NOT a whole grain. When organizations like the American Heart Association recommend eating more whole grains, they are referring to actual whole grains – not packaged products.  For the record, I have nothing against cereal – in fact, I love it. But, when I eat it, I’m aware that it’s not going to prevent heart disease.

THIS is a whole grain.

Real whole grains contain almost everything you need including vitamins, minerals, fiber, fat (from the vitamin E) and protein. Fiber, which is linked to all kinds of disease prevention, deserves its own blog post so we’ll save that for another day.

Try easing into whole grains by making it just once a week to start. I’ll eat brown rice or quinoa with just about everything. I try (but don’t always succeed, I will admit it) to make some at the beginning of the week so that I always have some in the fridge. I will re-heat it and throw a green salad on top, or I’ll serve it with fish, beans, or any other protein. I usually add a few drops of water before reheating it in the microwave. If it’s really dry, I’ll make fried rice or create a dressing to marinate it so it will last longer.

Here are some suggestions on how to incorporate whole grains into your daily diet:

Kasha, oats or quinoa for breakfast – add maple syrup, cinnamon, nuts, dried or fresh fruit,  vanilla yogurt (for added protein)

Brown rice – many Asian restaurants offer both – if you and your family are used to white rice, try mixing them together. Make it easy by purchasing a rice cooker. See my notes from the Indian Recipes on how to cook brown rice on the stove.

Millet is a nutty, gluten-free grain that used just like rice or quinoa and serve with a protein like fish, check, or meat. Check out this site for recipes.

Quinoa is one of my all-time favorite grains. It cooks in 20 minutes, it’s not as chewy as other whole grains, and it’s packed with nutrients. Check out a past blog post for my Quinoa Stuffing with Caramelized Onions and Pine Nuts recipe which is always a favorite in my cooking classes.

NOTE: Many, many people are having trouble digesting gluten these days. Rather than relying entirely on expensive gluten-free products that are still somewhat processed, it’s best to eat the real deal (and of course, using the packaged products for convenience). I will share more information about gluten issues in the near future.

Gluten-free grains: rice, quinoa,  corn, millet, amaranth, teff – check out Gluten-Free Girl’s blog and cookbook for more information about cooking gluten-free.

Gluten-containing grains: wheat, oats, rye, barley, and spelt

Food. Healthy. Diets. Eating. Cooking. Sustainable. Local. All big buzz words for 2010. I have dozens of blog posts ruminating in my head that cover all of these topics – attempts to clarify all of this Food Confusion and help people get back on track. But today, I am going to talk about popcorn.

Twice yesterday, I encountered the tell-tale smell of microwave popcorn. And it got me thinking about how people are trying to eat healthier – but struggle with finding the time to prepare food from scratch. I’m particularly passionate about popcorn – love the stuff. When I make it, I prepare it on the stove in a pot with some oil – “old-fashioned” style. It takes me approximately 5-6 minutes. The only ingredients I use are: popcorn kernels, oil, and kosher salt.

Microwave popcorn, on the other hand, takes roughly 3 minutes to “cook.” It contains all kinds of processed ingredients including: Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Natural Flavors, Annatto For Coloring, Soy Lecithin and/or Palm Oil and Freshness Preserved With Tbhq and Citric Acid. (It’s pretty cool that you can read the nutrition labels on packages via Amazon.com). In 2007, they discovered a chemical in microwave popcorn that causes lung problems.

We certainly like things to be instantaneous! Even if it means saving us just a few minutes. It never ceases to make me laugh when I take pictures of my nieces and nephews on my digital camera and they immediately say, “Let me see it!” We are so spoiled by technology now that we often forget that it’s the things that take a little time that we usually savor the most in life.

Last summer, I made popcorn for my Healthcorps students who are in their early 20’s. They were drooling over it. You would have thought I made them a gourmet 5-course meal – because most of them had never had it before! It not only tastes much better but it’s MUCH cheaper and it’s made with “real” ingredients our bodies recognize and know how to digest.

We can keep buying “100-calorie packs” and trying to go that route which, clearly hasn’t worked well for us over the past 20 years. Or, we can face the fact that our bodies want to consume food grown naturally – not engineered in a laboratory. Mother Nature’s food. If we cut out the chemicals, we will notice a lot of positive changes in our health including our energy levels, our skin, our weight, our moods and so on. This is especially important for kids – chemicals in processed foods are linked to all kinds of health, weight, and behavioral problems in children. Michael Pollan just discussed how crucial it is to eat “real” foods with Oprah last week.

I realize that it’s not easy to eat completely chemical-free these days. All we can do is keep making small differences in our diet – take baby steps toward a “cleaner” way of eating. Since processed foods are everywhere, we need to take every chance we can to reach for “real” foods – and save the “instant meals” for road trips and weekday evenings when everyone is exhausted.

Preparing a meal from scratch doesn’t take as long as you’d think. A UCLA study found that those making meals from scratch spent almost the same amount of time preparing dinner than those making a meal from partially-prepared, “convenient” foods. While developing recipes for my cookbook, I discovered that making (gourmet) macaroni and cheese from scratch takes roughly the same amount of time to prepare it from a box.

So, next time you’re looking for a snack – instead of pulling out the chips or packaged foods, pull out a bag of popcorn kernels.

JULIE’S HOMEMADE POPCORN
One of my chef friends drizzles truffle oil over popcorn for a decadent snack. You can add all kinds of ingredients and spices: nutritional yeast, parmesan, cinammon sugar, or chili powder. This recipe yields a pretty big batch because I like to eat it the next day or put it in snack bags to take to work.

1/4 cup vegetable oil (Don’t use olive oil – I’m into grapeseed lately)
3/4 – 1 cup popcorn kernels (Organic, if possible)
Kosher salt to taste (Kosher or sea salt always trump table salt)

In a Dutch oven (or 8 quart pan), heat oil on medium to high heat. When it starts to shimmer (after a few minutes), add a popcorn kernel. When the oil starts to sizzle around the kernel, add the rest of the kernels. (I use a full cup in a Dutch oven which overflows a little when it’s fully popped.) Cover with tightly fitted lid.

Jiggle the pan just a little bit while the kernels start to heat up (you might need to use hot pads to hold the pan). When they all start to pop at once, jiggle the pan with more force so that the bottom pieces don’t burn. As soon as the popping sound starts to slow down, lower heat, jiggle for another minute or so and pull it off the heat. Salt and enjoy.

For more information on how chemicals in food can affect health, especially with regards to children, check out Robyn O’Brien’s new book, The Unhealthy Truth.

From Regina over at The Green Fork blog:

In a ruling certain to discourage communities from fighting the construction of factory farms in their areas,  last week the Illinois Supreme Court rejected an appeal by residents who are being sued for $300,000 in costs and damages after their unsuccessful attempt to have environmental issues addressed before construction of a Cargill-affiliated pork CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation).

This case hinged substantively on whether the construction was defined as a new facility, or an expansion of an existing facility, under the Illinois Livestock Management Facilities Act.  The act was amended by the Illinois legislature in 1996 in recognition of the fact that market forces were leading to the construction of larger CAFOs, which increased the threat of groundwater and air pollution.  To balance these issues with the state’s desire to promote agriculture, the updated law requires “minimum setbacks, stiffer design requirements, and an opportunity for public notice, comment and hearing” when a new animal confinement facility is proposed.

According to the Illinois Appellate Court – which issued the ruling the state Supreme Court refused to review – the farmer who is the defendant in this lawsuit, “admitted [that] the location of the proposed facility would violate setback requirements” if the CAFO he plans to construct was considered new.  However, the same court accepted the defendant’s argument that the planned structure qualifies as an expansion of an existing CAFO under the law, and therefore does not trigger the more stringent environmental requirements imposed on new facilities.

The farmer’s claim that he is “expanding” his facility, rather than building a new one, was based upon his plans to build on the site of a hog confinement building that was demolished in 2004 and which housed, at times, as many as 2,300 animals.  Supporting his claim was a finding by a state agriculture department employee that the cost of the proposed “expansion” would be less than half the cost of a “new” facility.  Under the Livestock Management Facilities Act, an expansion that costs less than half of what it would cost to build a new CAFO is not deemed a new facility.

The CAFO to be built will house 3,750 hogs – about 62 percent more than the one that was demolished in 2004 – bringing 62 percent more waste to a community with at least 60 homes within a two mile radius.  In fact, even as they ruled against the community, the appellate court wrote, “plaintiff no doubt has valid concerns about the arrival of 3,750 hogs in the neighborhood.”

The dissenting judge on the three judge panel reasoned that the court should have considered “not necessarily whether the defendant’s project constitutes a ‘new’ facility, but whether it is the sort of project that [the] legislature intended to be subjected to more strenuous notice, processing, and setback requirements.”  To support this contention, he cited a 1988 case in which the Illinois Appellate Court found that expansion of a landfill could trigger the more stringent requirements and review generally reserved under the law for a “new” landfill because it, “in effect, increases its capacity to accept and dispose of waste.”

In the landfill ruling, the court took into account that “adjusting the dimensions of a landfill . . . will surely have an impact on the ‘danger to the surrounding area.’”  Sadly, in deciding the CAFO lawsuit, the court failed to make this connection between the consequences of its ruling and the legislature’s intent to prevent environmental and public health damage from the construction of large factory farms.

Illinois courts routinely allow defendants to sue the losing party for fees and damages when a trial court’s preliminary injunction is found to have been “wrongly issued,” as the appeals court ultimately decided happened in this case.  This appears to leave the plaintiffs, area residents who came together to address environmental concerns about this new factory farm, holding the Big Feed bag.

As 2009 drew to a close, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) quietly issued a decision that will dramatically decrease the destruction of fish within Long Island’s south shore estuary.  Tucked into the large expanse of salt marshes there, the E.F. Barrett Power Station can silently kill more than one billion fish and other marine life specimens every year.

Of the billion killed each year by the five-decades-old power plant, more than 30 million are winter flounder, a species whose numbers are today at a fraction of their historic levels due to habitat loss and overfishing. In fact, the stocks are so decimated that last year the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission required New York and other Mid-Atlantic states to impose drastic reductions to their commercial and recreational winter flounder harvest.  Meanwhile, the owners of antiquated power plants have been allowed to recklessly destroy aquatic life, virtually thumbing their noses at the highly regulated commercial and recreational fishing industry, and at taxpayers who have invested billions of dollars in the restoration of the nation’s rivers, lakes and oceans. The Barrett station alone accounts for 40 percent of the winter flounder destroyed by New York’s power plants.

So we were thrilled to learn on December 23 that Barrett’s owner – currently National Grid – will be required to install equipment that will drastically reduce the plant’s harm to marine life.  The bad news is that Barrett is not the only culprit on Long Island; the region’s five thermoelectric power plants together can destroy 10.6 billion marine organisms every year, or more than one million every hour.

So how is it that a power plant can so efficiently devour fish?  It all comes down to cooling.  Power plants must cool the steam used to turn their turbines and produce electricity.  As a result, they require large quantities of water to cool the equipment and keep everything running smoothly and safely.  For example, the E.F. Barrett plant sucks in nearly 300 million gallons of estuarine water brimming with microscopic life every day.  Fish eggs, larvae and plankton, all of which are essential to the aquatic food chain, are vacuumed into intake pipes, exposed to extremely hot water and toxic chemicals, and battered about by mechanical equipment.  Few, if any, survive.  Larger fish and other marine life that drift into the powerful currents rushing into the plants’ intake structures become trapped on screens intended to keep them out of the cooling system, and are injured and sometimes killed as a result.

For some it’s easy to dismiss the death of billions of eggs and larvae because the fact is that very few survive to adulthood.  Most fish in their early life stages are eaten by other animals, starve, or die from exposure to pollution or shifting water temperatures.  But just because an egg doesn’t grow to eventually end up on the end of a fishing line doesn’t negate its importance.  Eggs and larvae are a critical source of food for birds, mammals and other fish, and eggs that survive to hatch as young fish not only serve as prey for other wildlife, but become important predators themselves.

The solution is simple: destructive, antiquated cooling systems that simply withdraw and then discharge water – called “once-through” cooling – can be replaced by systems that recycle their used cooling water in what’s called a “closed cycle” system – much like a car radiator.  The result is a stunning 95 percent drop in the amount of water that the plant needs to withdraw and, in turn, a 95 percent drop in the amount of aquatic wildlife harmed and killed by the plant.  In fact, if any of the Long Island power plants were built today, they would be required to use this technology.

The primary reason the carnage has been allowed to continue is a lack of federal leadership. According to the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should have created regulations that require all existing power plants to use the “best technology available” to minimize the destruction of aquatic life.  In other words, the EPA should require closed cycle cooling.  However, weak draft regulations and a resulting series of lawsuits have left us where we are today: with the EPA trying, once more, to piece together a new set of rules to compel power plants to end their environmental destruction.

But on Long Island, local groups aren’t waiting for the EPA to act.  Organizations including Citizens Campaign for the Environment and Network for New Energy Choices (the group I work for) are spearheading a campaign to stop the slaughter of Long Island’s marine life by all five of the region’s power plants.  Using New York’s ongoing wastewater permit renewal review of the plants as an opportunity to demand change, we have called on the DEC to require National Grid to replace its plants’ antiquated once-through cooling systems with closed-cycle cooling.

Clearly DEC is listening.  With its year-end decision to require closed cycle cooling at the E.F. Barrett plant, the state may save over a billion Long Island fish every year.

Some people call it procrastination – I prefer the phrase, “working well under pressure.”

Still need a few gifts? Forget the bath salts and striped ties. Buy the gift that keeps on giving — giving you delicious meals that is! Cooking classes, kitchen tools and cookbooks won’t end up on a dusty shelf in the garage. They will help the entire family save money by not eating out and help everyone become healthier – and maybe even lose some weight. They also work as gifts for both genders and every age group.

Another advantage is that you can spend as little or as much as you want. Little kitchen gadgets work well for stocking stuffers and large electrical appliances means you only have to buy one present. The key is to make sure you are spending your money on worthwhile items because there are a lot of random tools on the market now.

Macy’s is having some amazing sales on kitchen equipment – it’s worth looking through the paper for coupons.

Kitchen Equipment

Here are some of the more expensive tools:
Cuisinart Food Processor – I like the 11 or 12 cup but there are other great options.

Kitchen Aid Mixer - Make sure you get the kind with the tilting head!

Chef’s knife – I recommend a Wusthof 8? or check out Japanese knives as well. (Don’t bother with a knife set – all you need are 3 knives: a quality chef’s knife, a paring knife and a serrated knife.)

Medium-priced items:

Immersion Blender – I recommend Braun but this Cuisinart looks good too. (Try to spend at least $40 or more, otherwise the motor is weak and it takes forever to blend your soup or smoothie.)

Cookware – I like All-Clad pans and Le Creuset even though they are pricey – and also iron pans. Limit how much teflon/non-stick you use (I own only one omelet pan and one skillet and try to use stainless steel or iron pans as much as possible – iron will become nonstick if you properly season the pans).

Less expensive tools:

I’m not into a lot of gadgets so I only recommend items I really think are useful. Here are some inexpensive tools that could be combined for one big present or used for stocking stuffers. Williams-Sonoma has a great selection of small tools and they do some beautiful gift wrapping – for FREE.

Tongs, U-shaped peeler, strainer/colander, microplane zester (for peeling citrus skin and grating), steamer basket, manual juicer, salad spinner (to wash greens and fresh herbs), oven thermometer (since most ovens are not super accurate), pastry brush (the nylon or silicone ones last the longest), wooden spoon, slotted spoon, off-set spatulas, mandoline, grilling or baking tools, measuring bowls and cups, cutting board, or salt and pepper grinders.

Cooking Classes

Some classes in your area may be very reasonably priced. If you want to splurge, you could hire a private teacher to teach classes in the home. You can search online for cooking classes or chef instructors in your area.

Cookbooks

For those of you looking for a less expensive version of the private cooking teacher, I highly recommend purchasing cookbooks that offer lots of kitchen advice in additition to recipes.

Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making you a Better Cook by Jamie Oliver

The Competent Cook by Lauren Braun Costello

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman

Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking by Julia Child

The Americas Test Kitchen Family Cookbook by Daniel J. Van Ackere

Martha Stewart’s Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook by Matha Stewart

Fast Food My Way by Jacques Pepin

The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins

Betty Crocker Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Cook Today, New Tenth Edition

Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition

For the gourmands who like learning about random food facts, check out The Deluxe Food Lover’s Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst  or Harold McGee’s On Food in Cooking.

I’m headed to the Hazon Food Conference in Monterey, CA next week where I will be teaching several sessions, so stay tuned for my next blog post in a couple of weeks. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

In gearing up for the 2010 release of its super-genetically modified corn called “SmartStax,” agricultural-biotechnology giant Monsanto is using an advertising slogan that asks, “Wouldn’t it be better?” But can we do better than nature, which has taken millennia to develop the plants we use for food?

We don’t really know. And that in itself is a problem. The corn, developed by Monsanto with Dow AgroSciences, “stacks” eight genetically engineered traits, six that allow it to ward off insects, and two to make it resistant to weed-killing chemicals, many of which are also trademarked by Monsanto. It’s the first time a genetically engineered (GE) product has been marketed with more than three traits.

Canada approved the corn without assessing it for human health or environmental risk, claiming that the eight traits have already been cleared in other crop seeds – even though international food-safety guidelines that Canada helped develop state that stacked traits should be subject to a full safety assessment as they can lead to unintended consequences.

One problem is that we don’t know the unintended consequences of genetically engineered or genetically modified (GM) foods. Scientists may share consensus about issues such as human-caused global warming, but they don’t have the same level of certainty about the effects of genetically modified organisms on environmental and human health.

A review of the science conducted under the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development in 2008 concluded that “there are a limited number of properly designed and independently peer-reviewed studies on human health” and that this and other observations “create concern about the adequacy of testing methodologies for commercial GM plants.”

Some have argued that we’ve been eating GM foods for years with few observable negative consequences, but as we’ve seen with things such as trans fats, it often takes a while for us to recognize the health impacts. With GM foods, concerns have been raised about possible effects on stomach bacteria and resistance to antibiotics, as well as their role in allergic reactions. We also need to understand more about their impact on other plants and animals.

Of course, these aren’t the only issues with GM crops. Allowing agro-chemical companies to create GM seeds with few restrictions means these companies could soon have a monopoly over agricultural production. And by introducing SmartStax, we are giving agro-chemical companies the green light not just to sell and expand the use of their “super-crops,” but also to sell and expand the use of the pesticides these crops are designed to resist.

A continued reliance on these crops could also reduce the variety of foods available, as well as the nutritive value of the foods themselves.

There’s also a reason nature produces a variety of any kind of plant species. It ensures that if disease or insects attack a plant, other plant varieties will survive and evolve in its place. This is called biodiversity.

Because we aren’t certain about the effects of GMOs, we must consider one of the guiding principles in science, the precautionary principle. Under this principle, if a policy or action could harm human health or the environment, we must not proceed until we know for sure what the impact will be. And it is up to those proposing the action or policy to prove that it is not harmful.

That’s not to say that research into altering the genes in plants that we use for food should be banned or that GM foods might not someday be part of the solution to our food needs. We live in an age when our technologies allow us to “bypass” the many steps taken by nature over millennia to create food crops. We can now produce “super-crops” that are meant to keep up with an ever-changing human-centred environment.

A rapidly growing human population and the deteriorating health of our planet because of climate change and a rising number of natural catastrophes, among other threats, are driving the way we target our efforts and funding in plant, agricultural, and food sciences, often resulting in new GM foods.

But we need more thorough scientific study on the impacts of such crops on our environment and our health, through proper peer-reviewing and unbiased processes. We must also demand that our governments become more transparent when it comes to monitoring new GM crops that will eventually find their ways in our bellies through the food chain.

Take David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge and learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

I just got back from the annual Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) conference which took place in Des Moines, Iowa, or as some call it, “the belly of the beast.” Iowa grows the majority this country’s food but, strangely, Iowans import 80% of the food that lands on their dinner table.  Doesn’t make sense, right?

This is the crux of what’s happened to our food system – our farmers are super efficient at growing food but can’t use their crops of corn and soy to feed their own families. I’ve been reading about these issue for years – but let me tell you, reading about it and standing in a farmer’s field next to hogs are two entirely different experiences. My field trip entitled, “Farmers Tell It Like It is,” which took us on a tour of Iowa farms, was extremely enlightening.

A chasm has been growing between writers like Michael Pollan and farmers who work in the field. I have to admit that I didn’t quite understand why the farmers are so angry with Michael Pollan. But as I listened to Jerry Peckumn, a farmer, stand in his fields explaining how difficult it would be to shift from large, conventional farming to small, organic farming, I realized how complicated it really is. And this is the interesting part: Jerry is into eco-friendly farming practices – he raises what are essentially free-range, organic cattle. Yet, he has concluded that it just isn’t economically feasible to switch over to a more sustainable way of farming. He said he’d be more likely to try it if he had more data but he couldn’t find it. Currently, our government gives farmers only one real option: grow conventional soy, corn or wheat – or go broke. Check out this video of one of the farmer’s we visited, George Naylor, describe why big farms keep getting bigger. (This picture is from a conventional farm – you can see how huge the equipment is.)

Farmers are SMART. They can do something that most of us can’t: grow enough food to feed others. Second, they have an incredible grasp of food politics and the complicated legislation that goes along with crop subsidies. And third, they have mastered the intricate, ecological connection between land, animals, and water – I had to ask Jerry several times to explain why simply planting prairie grass improved a host of environmental problems.  And this was just in the first 2 hours of the field trip!

I could wax on about all of the issues that farmers are facing right now – but I will let someone with more expertise do that for me. Jill Richardson, who I had the pleasure of meeting while on the Farmer Field trip, writes the blog, La Vida Locavore and covers all of these topics and more. I bought one of her books, Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It, right there on the bus. (And please note, that I still think that Michael Pollan’s work is brilliant – it’s important that we see both sides of the issue.)

The best part of the whole day, of course, was being fed a home cooked meal by Chris Henning, one of our lovely tour guides, at the Wilbeck farm, aptly named Farmhouse Life. We sat down to a mouthwatering meal made from local foods: Corn Bread, Beef and Vegetables, Black Beans and Corn Salad, Jack’s Favorite Biscuits, Grandma’s Rye Bread and my all-time favorite dish, Squash Casserole – which was divine.

We then visited a dairy farm, Picket Fence Creamery where Jill Burkhart and her husband sell dairy products and other locally produced food items at their country store. I found it amazing that as her customers walked away with their food, she called out to them by name. What a concept that we have lost in this country: knowing the people who grow and prepare our food by name.

The Burkharts served us each a huge piece of homemade apple pie and their homemade ice cream. (YUM.) Ordinarily, I can’t eat ice cream – it causes me tummy problems. But the Picket Fence Creamery ice cream? I was just fine. This is something that I’m going to continue to investigate: the fact that much of our food intolerances and other health problems may not be linked to the actual food but how it was grown, produced and prepared.

The rest of the conference was incredibly informative and I met some extremely dynamic people who are doing everything that they can to make sure that the food you put on your table is of the highest quality possible.

In the mean time, I will leave you with some wonderful insight from a cookbook I bought at the Burkhart’s country store, Grandma’s Recipes – Recipes from the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. Here is advice from Grandma Horst and Grandma Hoover:

“There is one important point to remember: Do not feed a child too many cakes and cookies, so that plain foods are slighted.”

You tell it like it is, Grandma!